


Delicious Proximity

by Mousecookie



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Harrisco Fest 2018, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Prompt: "delicious proximity", but some edits, soft nerds taking care of each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 10:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17281982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousecookie/pseuds/Mousecookie
Summary: “Hungry, Ramon?” Harry smirked as he unpacked the paper bag.“Sweet baby Jesus, I am now,” Cisco replied, staring longingly at the hot, greasy triple-triple and extra large fries.





	Delicious Proximity

**Author's Note:**

> Another one originally written for Harrisco Fest 2018 on Tumblr, migrated here with some revisions.

It started with a torsion engine and Big Belly Burger.  

Cisco had been working on temperamental machinery for hours, up to his elbows in grime, his focus so intense it was like he was in a trance.  He could go for ages when he was like this – inconvenient bodily needs like food and sleep faded into the background in favor of The Work.

Things were good.  Progress was being made.

And then Harry ruined everything by strolling into the lab with a bag of takeout from Big Belly Burger.  The rich savory smell filled the room and Cisco’s dormant stomach woke up like a bear coming out of hibernation, growling so loudly that Harry looked over from where he’d just sat down at his workbench.

“Hungry, Ramon?” Harry smirked as he unpacked the paper bag.

“Sweet baby Jesus, I am now,” Cisco replied, staring longingly at the hot, greasy triple-triple and extra large fries.  He inhaled deeply – oh, heaven - then sighed in defeat at his grime-coated hands.  He hated stopping in the middle of a good flow.  “Ugh, you’re ruining my  _groove_ ,” he said to the Big Belly Burger. 

“You’re hardly an emperor,” quipped Harry, because of course he’d know an underrated Disney film, “But I can see you as a llama.”  He took a huge bite of his triple triple and groaned in satisfaction.

“Shut up and save me some fries,” Cisco grumped, plopping back down in front of the engine.  He was no quitter.

He determinedly ignored the vicious pangs of hunger in his gut and went back to work - it was important to finish this stage of the engine all at once.  He just needed to focus!  Just a little longer.  There was probably only an hour of work now between him and food.  If Harry ate all the fries there was still his stash of hot pockets (okay, okay, _Caitlin’s_ stash of hot pockets) in the staff kitchen freezer.  Mmmm, hot pockets.  So tasty.

He winced as his stomach complained again, a comical gurgle that slowly dwindled to a whine.  Damnit!  Stop thinking about hot pockets. 

Cisco was glaring at the engine, trying to rally, when he caught a strong whiff of hot oil and salt.  He turned and nearly poked his eye out on the Big Belly french fry Harry was holding near his face.

“Okay, rude,” he said, wiping his cheek with a knuckle before he remembered his hands were dark with engine grime. Ugh - insult to injury. 

“Do you not want it,” Harry deadpanned.  He waved the fry tantalizingly under Cisco’s nose.

“Yeah, okay, quit moving!” Cisco griped.  When Harry complied, he plucked the fry from Harry’s fingers with his mouth and chewed it with immense relish.   _MMmmnnnn salt-and-fat_ , his brain sighed.

“So where are we at with this?” Harry asked, pointing at the engine with another fry before offering it like he had the first.  Cisco wasted no time nabbing that one too.

“Well, I’m almost done with the cross-rotational alignment of the pistons,” he replied around a mouthful of fried starch.  “I figure once those are done I can call it a day before going back to the conversion pumps in the reactor.  Those are gonna be a real bitch.”

Harry hummed and crouched down to take a closer look. 

“Have you thought about how we’re going to isolate the reactor from kinetic backlash?” He ate a fry himself, then held up another to Cisco as he stared at the machine.  Cisco took it before he launched into an explanation.  Whenever he paused, Harry fed him another french fry.

Between the two of them they finished both the engine’s piston array and the Big Belly fries, and it marked the start of a standing agreement between them that they dubbed “feed the driver”.

“Feed the driver” went like this: whoever’s work was so involved they couldn’t take a break or split attention - aka the one “driving the car” - would be fed by the person who had a less demanding task - aka “the passenger” - if and when food became necessary and available.  He who was busiest would be fed.

And with that, Cisco and Harry slipped into the casual intimacy of sharing food like they’d been doing it for years. 

\-----

Barry was the first to catch them at it. Harry was disentangling neural relays for some sweet new Vibe-enhancing tech, something he couldn’t stop halfway through. It was well into dinner time and an obvious “feed the driver” situation. Accordingly Cisco had ordered Chinese takeout and was feeding Harry lo mein, one carefully-twirled bite at a time.  It happened that Barry zoomed in while Harry had one end of an unexpectedly long noodle still held in Cisco’s chopsticks.  

“Hey guys, I-- oh. Uhh. ...Am I interrupting, or--?” Barry asked, the very soul of awkwardness.

Cisco thought Harry would likely say “Yes” in that blunt way of his just to be contrite, but he was busy conquering the noodle.  Cisco played it cool instead.

“Nah Barr, what’s up my man?” When the noodle was gone he popped a piece of broccoli in his own mouth.  The next one went to Harry, who was still laser-focused on The Work. 

“I just was gonna-- you guys are weird, you know that?” Apparently Barry had no chill.

Cisco shrugged.  “Hey, you gotta feed the driver.”  He selected a nice piece of red pepper for Harry’s next bite.

“O…kay?”  If Barry kept wrinkling his forehead like that it was going to become permanent, and he’d have to be tragically renamed as The Most Perpetually Confused Man Alive. Thankfully Barry’s adaptable nature won out and he barreled onward, “I mean, whatever works? I guess? Anyway, I was going to ask you about that meta yesterday--”

And that was that, though Barry did still shoot them the occasional puzzled look.

\-----

The next member of Team Flash to say something was Joe.   Harry was dutifully providing sips of a Big Belly strawberry milkshake while Cisco repaired seams in Wally’s speedster suit.  To be honest Cisco could have put it down, but they were on a time crunch – who knew when the Kid Flash would be called into a mission and need his suit?  And sure, they also had Barry and Killer Frost and Jesse and Cisco himself, but Cisco wasn’t about to see a member of his team benched due to a wardrobe malfunction.

“Can’t Cisco, y’know… drink his own milkshake?” asked Joe, giving them some serious side-eye.

“He’s busy.” Harry grunted, taking a sip.

“And why drink mine when I can have Harry’s milkshake?” Cisco added. He turned to Harry with a grin, “If I have a long enough straw-“

In stereo they both crowed, “I. Drink. Your. Milkshake!  I drink it up!”

“What in the hell-?” Joe began.

“ _There Will Be Blood_ ,” Cisco sighed, “A masterpiece of method acting and cinematography.”

“Great film,” Harry agreed sagely.

“Daniel Day-Lewis is apparently just as perfect on Earth 2,” Cisco informed Joe. “They got some things right at least.” 

Harry, who had been nodding along, stopped in affront at those last words and yanked the milkshake straw out of reach _just_ as Cisco went for his next sip, leaving him lipping at the air like a giraffe reaching for leaves.

“Hey!”

“Insult Earth-2 and I revoke your milkshake privileges.”

“That is cruel and unusual punishment,” complained Cisco, recovering his dignity and smoothing out a finished seam in the bright yellow tri-polymer material.  “Here I am just trying to keep clothes on the backs of our local heroes, and you’re gonna to let me die of starvation?”

Harry rolled his eyes and took a long, pointed sip of the shake for himself. 

In retaliation, Cisco deployed the saddest puppy eyes he could muster.

Harry narrowed his eyes and extended his sip into an obnoxious slurp.

It was time for Cisco to pull out the big guns: a full-on pout.  Lower lip just barely quivering. Together with the puppy eyes, it was foolproof.  It had to be.  Aaaand- yes!  Harry huffed in exasperation before finally offering the straw back to Cisco again.

“I’d leave you to suffer,” Harry groused. “But then you’d be even more annoying.”

Cisco hummed his skepticism and leaned to take his own noisy slurp of the shake. “Hand me that pincushion on your left, would you Joe?” he asked, pointing.

“…Sure,” Joe replied slowly, delivering the pincushion.  He gave them one last look before turning to the door. “I’m gonna just… leave you two to… _whatever_ this is.”

\-----

Wally and Jesse were hanging out in the lab the next time it happened, relaxing before a speedster training session with Barry. 

 “For godsake, Ramon, it’s ‘feed the driver’, not ‘pour marinara all over the driver’.”

“Gee, sorry, your worship,” Cisco rolled his eyes and put down the bowl of pasta he’d been sharing to rummage around for a paper napkin.  There was a smear of red sauce at the corner of Harry’s mouth.  The man himself was occupied holding together two freshly-glued parts of a broken drone, and he glared balefully at Cisco.

“Are you just going to leave me like this?” Harry asked impatiently. “It’s undignified.” 

“ _You’re_  undignified,” retorted Cisco, finding napkins at last.  To prove his point he stuck one to Harry’s face over the sauce smear.

“You’re fired,” said Harry, causing the napkin to flutter and Cisco to snort.

“ _Psh,_  I don’t work for you,” Cisco sassed, and gleefully pulled out his phone to snap a picture. “Smile, Harry.”

“I’m tossing you out of the car.”

“You do that you’re stuck with napkin-face forever.”  Cisco took the photo.

“You’re rolling over the asphalt right now.  You’re probably dead.”

“Man, I feel great for a dead person.”

“You look great-” Harry paused, and Cisco raised his eyebrows. “…for a dead person,” Harry finished weakly, and frowned. “Pretend that came out as a better insult.”

 “Oh no, compadre, that one’s going in the history books with your name on it.”

And then because he was a generous, merciful soul, Cisco finally reclaimed the napkin and wiped the sauce from Harry’s mouth.  He tried not to notice the shape and give of Harry’s lips under the thin paper, or how Harry angled slightly into the touch (for efficiency of cleaning, of course).  If Cisco took a little longer than necessary with the task, well, he was just being thorough.  Harry didn’t seem to mind. 

Impulsively, Cisco made one last pass with just his thumb.  Yep, very soft.  Hypothesis confirmed.  Information to file away with general data about the universe. 

"Is it gone?" Harry's breath tickled his fingertips.

Cisco quickly withdrew. "Yep!" He replied, voice a little higher than normal. "Nothing to see here."

He scarfed the next few bites of pasta to distract himself.

“Do they always do this?” Wally asked from across the lab, a cute furrow in his brow.

“Yes,” said Jesse emphatically.  She grabbed Wally’s hand. “Wanna check if Barry’s ready for training?  Like, right now?”

“That… might be best.” Wally agreed, and together they zipped away.

\-----

Over time Cisco had to acknowledge that he and Harry had gotten rather lax about the rules of “feed the driver”.  It had originally been when the work physically prevented one of them from eating, but at this point Cisco could just be sitting at the cortex monitors and Harry would cruise by to absentmindedly offer him a bite of a hot pocket or a forkful of arroz con pollo and Cisco would accept it and keep right on doing what he was doing.  He frequently offered the same to Harry without much thought. 

Sometimes if Harry walked by eating something that looked tasty, Cisco would open his mouth like a baby bird and make a demanding noise so that Harry would share a bite (he rolled his eyes but always did).

“I’m just glad you’re both getting enough to eat,” said Caitlin, a smile tugging at her lips.

It was the new normal.  It was… nice.

Cisco was man enough to admit to himself that he enjoyed the arrangement for more than the food.  It was comforting: a constant reassurance that someone cared about his wellbeing.  It gave tacit permission for Harry to be in Cisco’s space, and vice versa.  They already shared a lab and all its equipment – sharing food and drink was just one more thing in the same pattern.  Cisco liked it when they gravitated towards each other. When Harry reached for him with fiery words but kind hands.  When he could feel the warmth radiating off Harry’s skin.

His analysis ended there (and while he was being honest with himself, that was deliberate) but neither he nor Harry broke from the routine, so Cisco simply settled in to enjoy it.

\-----

It started with a torsion engine and Big Belly Burger, and the same combination changed everything.

A few months had gone by and the engine was acting up. Cisco rolled up his sleeves against the grime and got to work. When hunger struck an hour later, Cisco called out “Feed the driver!” and Harry agreeably picked up their usual Big Belly order and provided a steady supply of french fries.  In tried and true tradition, they argued about the technical problem while Cisco worked.

Harry was mid-rant about centrifugal alignments and really couldn’t be blamed for dropping the fry he’d been holding out for Cisco.  

Cisco would also insist that, being similarly distracted by science (science!) that he was not at fault for being oblivious to the flub.

So everyone was blameless when Cisco accidentally closed his lips around most of Harry’s thumb instead of a french fry.  In the split second between registering that it was  _Harry’s thumb in his mouth_  and complete mortification, Cisco’s brain offered a stuttering,  _O-oh_.  Then survival instinct kicked in and he pulled back, but it only made things worse when the callused digit sliding over his tongue sent a jolt of heat low in his belly.  Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, play it casual--

“Ack! Sorry! _Eugh_ -” Cisco went to wipe at his mouth, but remembered just in time that he was covered in engine grease and aborted into a kind of flail.

“It’s fine.” Harry’s voice was even more gravelly than usual, and when Cisco looked up at him to see twin spots of color in his cheeks.  He was looking at his spit-shiny thumb. Cisco unconsciously licked his lips and immediately Harry’s eyes flicked to Cisco’s mouth instead. Cisco swallowed.

“ _Oh my god_  you two, get a room.” Jesse’s voice broke the moment from across the lab, where she’d zoomed in a moment prior.  Her hand was clapped dramatically over her eyes.

“We’re in a room,” Harry said, because he was Harry.

“Ugh, I meant, ‘ _get a room’_ get a room,” said Jesse, with the kind of long-suffering exasperation innate to all teenagers.  She lowered her hand to glare at them. “You two have been getting more and more sickening for months and it’s driving me literally insane!  Go feed each other strawberries and champagne somewhere  _private_.  And  _far away_.” 

Jesse jabbed a final accusing finger in their direction, then zipped back the way she’d arrived.

There was a long pause.

Well this is awkward, Cisco meant to say.  But to his horror what came out was, “My apartment is private.  And far away.”  Fuck, he was in it now. He risked a glance at Harry, admitting, “The fridge is probably pretty empty, though.”

“That’s fine,” Harry rasped.  “I’m not hungry.”  

They reached for each other and it was all Cisco could do to gesture a glowing breach into existence and pull them both through it.


End file.
